One entrepreneur interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said that one of his businesses, a distributor for LED screens based in Shenzhen, is suffering from widening losses as overseas orders dry up, leading him to slash prices to compete for domestic clients. Having laid off more than 50 out of 120 staff since 2022, he said he is contemplating whether to shut the business this year.

[–] YoungBelden@hexbear.net 29 points 1 year ago

every accusation is an admission or whatever

like whenever the us economy is booming because line go up, all while a few million people are housing/food unstable

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Except official data doesn't look good? They haven't gaslit shit, they've been reporting slowing growth, decreasing exports, and deflation.

WSJ literally wrote an article "this is what I think China will do and that's why China bad"

What the fuck kind of journalism is that?

[–] Commiejones@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Official data looks good when you compare it with other large economies.

[–] Trudge@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 year ago

It's crazy how the real economy correlates with numbers in China. I'd love to live in a country like that.

[–] geikei@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

Export decrese is in line with almost every other east asian country and its very much so a "western economies go into recession and import less" problem. Groth slowing to ~5% is in line with what everyone is expected and China doesnt sweat too much about it. Its pretty solid especially since its higher quality. Deflation is only a problem if it persists for a long time and if it actualy spans in various types of commodities. If you exclude energy and housing everything else shows small inflation in China still and the real estate sector is going through tough but needed restructuring and regulation periods since last year. Deflation introduced from that part of the economy is more or less a by product of them deleveraging the sector and bursting some bubbles

[–] happyandhappy@hexbear.net 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

he's probably referring to this https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2023/08/02/china-consumption-or-investment/

tldr chinas quarterly growth has slowed and liberal economists are claiming china's miracle is over. private sector investment has shrank 0.2% for the first time since data collection in 2005 but investment by state firms has expanded 8.1% in the same period. there's also a current global manufacturing recession. doesnt mean "its over" or whatever tf they're saying but interesting to note.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-economy-asias-factory-activity-shrinks-chinas-slump-global-slowdown-weigh-2023-08-01/

[–] uralsolo@hexbear.net 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean there will be a point when the Chinese middle class stops growing and the government will need to midwife a new economic model. A Communist Party is probably the political organization currenntly in the world that can come up with an answer that isn't slashing the social safety net and giving big handouts to corporations to keep profits up, though.

[–] happyandhappy@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

im not an expert in political economy, but if you read the article he goes into a lot of specific reasons why china is still in a great position in regards to the future, although it will take responsible leadership that pushes back against mainstream neoclassical economics.

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Neoliberalism has been a failure for the actual population. It's decoupled economic growth from improved quality of life. Meanwhile, social democracies in Europe are showing that other models are practical and viable.

[–] MultigrainCerealista@hexbear.net 23 points 1 year ago

Which European country isn’t pursuing neoliberal economics?

[–] brain_in_a_box@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

Practical and viable so long as you have a massive base of exploited labour in Africa and Asia to prop you up.

[–] GaveUp@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

GDP Annual Growth Rate in European Union averaged 1.70 percent from 1996 until 2023

https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/gdp-annual-growth-rate

GDP Growth Rate in Euro Area averaged 0.37 percent from 1995 until 2023

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/gdp-growth

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Social Democracies in Europe are showing that you can keep people complacent as long as the oil and the african gold don't run out. Whoopsie.

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ca -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Must be forgetting about Finland, whoopsie.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago

Yeah, "countries" the size of an American suburb don't matter. Euros are always like "but what about shitsteinburg, a country with a proud national tradition and a population of 37!" Nobody cares.

[–] ComradeChairmanKGB@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 year ago

You don't think Finland benefits from the victimization of the global south?

[–] happyandhappy@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

neoliberalism is a function of capitalism's contradiction of requiring constant exponential growth. in an infinite timeline neoliberalism will sadly completely consume any semblance of "social democracy", and you can already see even the classic european social democracies are beginning to eat away at and privatize their welfare states.

other people are also pointing out unequal exchange, which is a critical concept to factor into the equation when trying to understand where the wealth of the european social democracies come from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjLmYCfKU7o this video is a really good short primer on the topic!